Jane Stillwater is a freelance journalist, war correspondent, blogger, political Cassandra and author of "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," now available on Amazon.com. Her latest motto is "Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world."

Sunday, July 31, 2011

In a historically unprecedented move recently, Israel's militant neo-con prime minister Bibi Netanyahu claims to have relaxed his iron grip on Gaza and has cordially invited tourists to visit this bombed-out, violently occupied and haunted place. According to Netanyahu, at last there's been a major breakthrough in the subjugated and occupied Gaza Strip! It has now been officially designated as a hot new tourist destination. Yeah right.

Despite multiple well-documented neutral inspections by international peace-keepers stating that last year's non-violent human aid flotilla to Gaza was not carrying weapons, Netanyahu still claims that the flotilla had actually been armed to the teeth. Bibi then went on to bravely compare himself to John F. Kennedy, stopping armed vessels from arriving in Gaza in the same heroic manner that Kennedy had stopped Soviet missiles from going to Cuba. Yeah right.

"People claim that they want to free Gaza, to be able to import goods," Netanyahu went on to say. "Well, they can. Basically, you can import anything to Gaza! It's completely open." Yeah right.

"Hamas is trying to smuggle in weapons, rockets. We are willing to let you bring in anything but weapons. We don't care if they bring in love boats, cruise ships, tourists, we're okay with that." Yeah right.

According to Bibi, if Princess Cruises or Royal Caribbean or even Norwegian Cruise Lines want to send "Love Boats" to Gaza, he is okay with that. Yeah right.

Has Netanyahu taken a page from the Republican/Democrat corporatist playbook here -- wherein it is not only morally correct but NECESSARY to lie to the public? Or did the American corporatists learn this mendacious technique from Bibi? Or, as highly-esteemed senior Israeli journalist Uri Avnery suggested recently, have they both been taking their pages from the Joseph Goebbels playbook? http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1311959069/

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